The present invention relates to a toner cartridge adapted to fit within a toner cartridge-receiving cavity of a printer.
Laser printers use a coherent beam of light, hence the term “laser printer,” to expose discrete portions of an image transfer drum thus attracting the printing toner. Toner is a mixture of pigment (most commonly black) and plastic particles. The toner becomes electrostatically attracted to exposed portions of the photoconductive transfer drum.
The photoconductive drum rotates opposite the developer roller, the developer roller being in fluid contact with the toner. The toner is transferred to paper, or other medium, as it passes over the rotating image transfer drum. Subsequently, the paper is heated so that the plastic is melted thereby permanently affixing the ink to the paper.
Most printer manufacturers design their printers to accept toner cartridges manufactured by it and to reject the toner cartridges manufactured by others. More particularly, to increase sales of their own toner cartridges, printer manufacturers have added electronic identification features to the printers and to the toner cartridges that do not enhance the functional performance of the printer in any way but which serve to prevent use of a competitor's toner cartridge in the printer. Printer manufacturers also prefer to sell new toner cartridges to replace empty toner cartridges. Therefore, they do not support the re-cycling industry.
Thus there is a need for a universal printer chip that enables a single toner cartridge to be used with printers made by differing manufacturers and with differing printer's models made by a common manufacturer. In addition to new cartridges, such a universal printer chip could be used in conjunction with spent cartridges that are re-filled with toner when empty by the re-cycling industry, or with the universal adaptor disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,136,608 to Miller.